Have a PS2, but all I really use it for is when I just want to sit back on the couch and have something mindless to do. Dynasty Warriors and the like, where all I do is charge around hitting stuff. If I want to play games properly I go for my PC.

I can't see myself buying any of the new consoles unless quite a few really interesting titles come out that I can't get anywhere else.

I have a SNES, Game Boy Color, N64, Gamecube, and Wii. I'm only actively using the Wii at the moment. Zelda was the main reason for having each one of these systems. Wii Sports though has become the main game that our family plays - everyone, from my 4 year old to the grandparents. My parents still have the NES that I grew up on.

I have an Xbox1, which I primarily bought to be able to play Jade Empire, Kotor2, Fable and other RPGs which I saw comming out back then for xbox only and that I didn't want to wait for on the PC. I also installed a MOD chip because I was developing for XBox and PC at work and thought I wanted to do some homebrew coding at home as well (of course in reality I could never seem to find the energy after a hard day at work doing almost the same - but I guess that's how "nerds" tend to think

I haven't used it much lately, except when my little brother comes to visit us. He's from the "console" age and is used to playing games with a gamepad. Now, as he gets older, he does seem to look more and more towards my shelf with cool PC games though - so there is still hope for him I guess If a new cool Xbox game comes out I would of course use the console more again.

All in all I'm mostly a PC gamer (has been since the early 80s) but I do think people are horribly narrowminded when they, as a principle, disregards the consoles and makes statements such as "all console gamers are kids, and all games for consoles are stupid, simple and generally not worth playing". In my opinion you have to judge each game - but of course people are free to have whatever opinions they want on the matter

My first console was 8 bit nintendo, after that got sega megadrive. Later on bought ps one. All consoles have been fun, but PC offers so much more as a gaming platform for me.

At the moment good old playstation is collecting dust in the closet, but when my friends come in, we still use to have few rounds in tekken 3. You can't do that on pc . What comes to old nes and sega..well I've sold them years ago. A decision that i do regret.

Ok, Wasn't going to post this here (and almost feel a little "dirty" for doing so), but I'm slowly warming up to consoles. I've been a hard-core PC gamer for years and never could see the appeal of consoles or the games that ran on them… until now.

During a recent moment of weakness (and following a long drout of RPGs on the PC), I made the 100.00 "plunge" for a PS2. At first, I found the controller cumbersome, the games too twitchy and difficult for someone not used to that kind of thing. I struggled through God of War… and Okami… and Resident Evil 4. The games had very high production values, much higher than I'm used to on the PC, but the emphasis on timing, save points, and quick reflexes was getting on my nerves.

But then I discovered Final Fantasy XII. Now, I know that some of you are going to smirk at hearing this (if you aren't already smirking now…), but FFXII is a true-blue, old-school Western-style RPG. With the exception of a few stylistic holdovers from previous games in the series (such as, chocobos and androgyny), the gameplay is extremely similar to KOTOR and NWN. In fact, it's better, as the level-up system is mind-bendingly complex, but also extremely intuitive. In other words, it has that perfect feeling of pulling back layers of an onion to reveal new modes of gameplay that one only encounters with rich, old-school classics like Fallout and BG2.

My Significant Other claims I am more hooked on this game than I've been on any game since BG2 and that is saying something, as I've played all the major PC RPGs that have come out since then.

So, if you already own a PS2, do yourself a favor and rent or buy this game. And when you do, give it some time… 10 hours or so… and when everything "clicks" and you begin to recognize the beauty of the engine under the hood you'll be hooked… believe me.

If you don't already own a PS2, I can honestly say that you might do well to purchase a used one just to play this game. It is THAT good.

Lord Alex

I keep looking at FFXII. I played a part of FFX, but found it mindnumbingly boring… cutscene, take two steps, random fight, cutscene. No dialog choices, no meaningfull character development as far as I could see, no choices. Just walk from cutscene to cutscene, wit annoying fights inbetween. I would have preferred it if they would have just left out the fighting and walking and made it a movie

But I keep hearing that FFXII is different, and so good. I might have to try it out then…

Originally Posted by Sorcha Ravenlock
I keep looking at FFXII. I played a part of FFX, but found it mindnumbingly boring… cutscene, take two steps, random fight, cutscene. No dialog choices, no meaningfull character development as far as I could see, no choices. Just walk from cutscene to cutscene, wit annoying fights inbetween. I would have preferred it if they would have just left out the fighting and walking and made it a movie

But I keep hearing that FFXII is different, and so good. I might have to try it out then…

Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII might as well have been made by different developers. There are almost no similarities between the two, other than the FF branding (and those pesky chocobos).

For one, there are almost no cut-scenes. Or, I should say, the cut-scenes are used in the way cut-scenes are used in PC RPGs: only at crucial moments in the plot to further the story or add scale. Be aware: that the game begins with a pretty lengthy cut-scene to get the ball rolling, but after that you will spend most of your time in full-blown exploration mode. In that way, the game has a lot more in common with Baldur's Gate or the Elder Scrolls than it does with Final Fantasy.

Also, no random encounters… none. As with CRPGs, if you see an enemy in the wilderness that you are not ready for or tired of fighting, simply walk past it. You'll want to fight some monsters in order to apply level-up points to skills, etc. and you'll soon get so addicted to the item drop system (in which killing multiple monsters of a similar type breeds better treasure) that you'll probably want to fight most of the time anyway.

The combat system is fantastic. In fact, and this is a fanboi term I almost never bring into respectable forums like this one, dare I say it is the work of genius. I can't describe too much of it, other than to say it is like KOTOR's system of queued up real-time pausable attacks only much, MUCH deeper. I've grown to love the combat sytsem in this game and it never stops getting more appealing. First, you figure out the gambits, then you figure out how to specialize certain characters as "trackers," "bow experts," "damage wizards," "time wizards," and so on. THEN, you start using the various Mist attacks, which have an interesting sort of slot machine mini-game built-in…

And best of all, the game reveals all this to you as you go, in one long extended tutorial. I don't think I even bothered to crack the game manual, though I have peeked at the hint guide a few times.

If you haven't already guessed, I highly recommend it. In fact, it is the first truly great RPG I've played in quite some time. It most definitely deserves its 93% rating on metacritic and then some.

Lord Alex

Originally Posted by Lord Alex
But then I discovered Final Fantasy XII[…]

I tried the demo of FF12 and found it terrible. Mind you in the demo you only get to experience the combat — but that's what I found severely lacking, some kind of real time system in which you have little control of your party's actions. Do you know if combat in the demo is the same as the one in the full game or as it changed ?

Originally Posted by Cormac
I tried the demo of FF12 and found it terrible. Mind you in the demo you only get to experience the combat — but that's what I found severely lacking, some kind of real time system in which you have little control of your party's actions. Do you know if combat in the demo is the same as the one in the full game or as it changed ?

I played the demo too and was underwhelmed. In fact, it almost prevented me from buying the game. It felt like some sort of "whack-a-mole" slideshow with very little strategy or involvement from the player.

The game itself starts off like this (tutorial mode), but then it really begins to open up and you find yourself doing the pause, queue up spells, queue up attacks, queue up buffs/de-buffs thing that made BG2 so much fun to play.

Also the AI routines are so customizable (via the Gambit system) that it is like you are given a sheet of pseudo-code to attach to each PC in the party. Take some of the more detailed preset AI routines for the Infinity Engine and then double (or triple) the complexity. Very fun and addictive, especially for stats junkies. For everyone else, it just makes for a very smooth and playable party system.

We had a Balley Arcade that we had for "testing" for 6 months from my brother's job. Then the parents bought us an Atari Video Computer System. That's an Atari 2600 to you and me. We regretted hinting at wanting that over the Intellivision. That one was much better.

After that, the console industry was destroyed by the burgeoning home computer industry. Gramma bought us a TI 99/4a after that.

The NES was silly. The only thing that looked good on it to me was Super Mario (pronounced Mare-ee-o in Canada, not Marr-ee-o as he is in the US).

My brother later bought a Sega Saturn but he had moved out by that time.

For some reason I never picked any of these up at the thrift store when I saw them.

I've not voted because I still consider PS1 and N64 as "new".

We should do another poll on what computers you've owned over the years or if you own anything other than a PC.

Another Yoda. I used to have a SNES a while back, like 10 years ago, and had blast playing the likes of Super Mario, Dr. Mario and my personal favorite, Duck Hunt, until the ZapBlaster or whatever its name was (the gun controller) went under. And others, of course. Until at some point my mother took over the whole thing getting addicted to Super Mario. Some time later a horrible accident happened to the thing.

As far as future console shopping go, I'm eyeing a certain Nintendo DS Lite Black, maybe a PSP but it won't be some time before I actually decide to buy one.

I dont know about any of you, but I miss my old Intellivision. That was a cool gaming console, well for it's time anyway. Gimme "Burger Time" over Atari's Pac-Man any day of the week, and those controllers totally rocked.

— I dont dislike people - I just like them better when theyre not around